Description
Book SynopsisMemoirs in which trauma takes a major—or the major—role challenge the limits of autobiography. Leigh Gilmore presents a series of "limit-cases"—texts that combine elements of autobiography, fiction, biography, history, and theory while representing...
Trade ReviewLeigh Gilmore's The Limits of Autobiography is a fine addition to the body of excellent recent work in trauma studies, and is highly recommended for all working in the mental health disciplines.... The writing is extremely fine throughout, and the book is a rich cornucopia of literary and psychological analyses, theoretical sophistication, and interdisciplinary connectedness; these treasures can only be suggested here.
* Metapsychology Online Review *
Through theoretically nuanced, lucid, and insightful readings, Gilmore demonstrates the ability of narrative to transform trauma, to speak to a certain truth about the relationship between trauma and identity that goes beyond the exigencies of accuracy and objectivity that pertain to a juridical contect.... Any reader interested in the myriad interpenetrations of violence, the law, identity, family, and life writing will find much to admire in this impressive study.
* Biography *
Gilmore offers astute and compelling commentaries in relation to the social and psychic forms within which selected autobiographers told their personal stories in literate and unconventional ways.... Informative, thought-provoking chapters comprise this unique and highly recommended contribution to the literary study of the autobiography.
* The Bookwatch *
Table of ContentsIntroduction - the limits of autobiography; represent yourself; bastard testimony - incest and illegitimacy in Dorothy Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina"; there will always be a father - transference and the auto/biographical demand in Mikal Gilmore's "Shot in the Heart"; there will always be a mother - serial autobiography and Jamaica Kincaid; without names - an anatomy of absence in Jeanette Winterson's "Written on the Body"; conclusion - the knowing subject and an alternative jurisprudence of trauma.
